"In me, I suppose," she said softly, and left the room.
Mr. Sauls took up his hat.
"I think we ought all to feel pretty well ashamed of ourselves after that," he remarked; and he went out, shutting the door sharply after him.
He had burnt his boats, and he knew it. He had made an enemy, and forced his own hand; he had rebuked Mrs. Russelthorpe in her own drawing-room, and closed the Ravenshill gates against himself; and he shrugged his shoulders at his own rashness as he went downstairs. Meg was by no means won yet, and he had been bolder than he could well afford.
"I never guessed I was such a fool," he said to himself; and then he smiled in spite of his cooler after-thoughts.
"If, after all, my luck holds good, and I do get her, and I will," he reflected, "won't I make that aunt of hers feel the difference? I should like to see the woman who will bully my wife. I should like it immensely."
His sympathy for his shy lady was very genuine, but he felt a thrill of exhilaration all the same. Mrs. Russelthorpe's anger, the growing gossip, this very "religious mania," were all playing into his hands—they would drive the girl nearer to him.
He meant to be very patient; it was only once in a blue moon that his feelings got the better of him; he would wait, and watch; and when Meg's position became unbearable, he would step in and say, "Here am I! With me you shall do as you choose. Follow your very exacting conscience where you like; dip your pretty fingers into my purse, and dress in sackcloth if it pleases you." He would not bully Meg. She was none the worse for a touch of asceticism in his eyes.
Like many men who believe in little themselves, he held that the more beliefs a woman has the better—and the safer.
Let her be as saint-like as she chose; if he was of the earth (as he candidly allowed he was) his wife should be of heaven, a thing apart, set in a costly shrine which he would delight in decorating.